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SummaryBackground and objectives Accurate and complete documentation of patient characteristics and comorbidities in renal registers is essential to control bias in the comparison of outcomes across groups of patients or dialysis facilities. The objectives of this study were to assess the quality of data collected in the Canadian Organ Replacement Register (CORR) compared with the patient's medical charts. Design, setting, participants, & measurementsThis cohort study of a representative sample of adult, incident patients registered in CORR in 2005 to 2006 examined the prevalence, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, and of comorbid conditions and agreement in coding of patient demographics and primary renal disease between CORR and the patient's medical record. The effect of coding variation on patient survival was evaluated.Results Medical records on 1125 patients were reviewed. Agreement exceeded 97% for health card number, date of birth, and sex and 71% (range 46.6 to 89.1%) for the primary renal disease. Comorbid conditions were under-reported in CORR. Sensitivities ranged from 0.89 (95% confidence interval 0.80, 0.92) for hypertension to 0.47 (0.38, 0.55) for peripheral vascular disease. Specificity was Ͼ0.93 for all comorbidities except hypertension. Hazard ratios for death were similar whether calculated using data from CORR or the medical record.Conclusions Comorbid conditions are under-reported in CORR; however, the associated risks of mortality were similar whether using the CORR data or the medical record data, suggesting that CORR data can be used in clinical research with minimal concern for bias.

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This paper examines a language teacher education professional development programme in New Zealand that draws on The New Zealand Curriculum (2007) (Ministry of Education, 2007a). At the heart of the Learning Languages area in the curriculum is communicative competence with the understanding that communication involves Language Knowledge and Cultural Knowledge. The New Zealand Ministry of Education expects schools will offer all Year 7-10 students the opportunity to learn an additional language in order for them to participate effectively in multicultural settings, both in New Zealand and internationally. To deliver the Learning Languages area of the curriculum, language teachers and generalist teachers are being encouraged to undertake professional development. This paper reports on a research evaluation of a Ministry-sponsored language teacher professional development programme. The findings reveal success in increasing teacher understanding of how to develop learners' Language Knowledge, because this part of the programme was underpinned by a deep principled knowledge base (Timperley, Wilson, Barrar & Fung, 2007), and teachers had opportunities to "acquire" knowledge and "participate" in a language teaching community (Sfard, 1998). However, teacher understanding of how to increase learners' Cultural Knowledge was less successful, because of a lack of a principled knowledge base of intercultural language teaching. We argue that effective professional development programmes need to both be based on deep principled knowledge and to offer learning that involves acquisition and participation.

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Introduction. e Clinical Internship Evaluation Tool (CIET) is a reliable and valid clinical education assessment tool but is used less frequently by physical therapist education programs than the Physical erapist Clinical Performance Instrument (PT CPI). e purposes of this exploratory study were to: 1) explore CI and student perceptions for the CIETas an accurate and user-friendly measurement of physical therapist (PT) student clinical performance; and 2) to compare stakeholder perceptions of CIET as a clinical performance tool to PT CPI. Methods. Clinical instructors and PT students were recruited from 5 geographically diverse physical therapist education programs and completed both the PT CPI and CIET at the midterm and final evaluation during a full-time clinical education experience. A post-survey collected data related to participants' perceptions of tool feasibility and ease of use. e Wilcoxon sign rank test was used to determine whether significant differences existed in the participants' perceptions related to the utility of the CIET versus PT CPI.Results. One hundred one participants (56 PT students; 45 CIs) completed the study. Most student and CI participants (91.1%) indicated that the CIET completion time was < 45 minutes. More students (66.1%) and CIs (73.3%) reported a PT CPI completion time of > 45 minutes. Students (71.4%) and CIs (68%) preferred the CIET to the CPI. ere was a significant difference in perception of ease of use (Z-score = 25.42, P < .001), appropriate completion time (Z-score = 27.25, P < .001), and little redundancy of items (Zscore = 27.17, P < .001). Discussion and Conclusion. Students and CIs preferred the CIET which was perceived to be easy to use and completed in < 45 minutes while still retaining the ability to accurately measure student performance in clinic. Clinical education requires efficient, valid, and reliable assessment tools to match the dynamic needs of a changing health care environment.